Sangchan View Hotel Kanchanaburi

... into the ground.

Next I rode a bamboo raft down the River Kwai. One of the few rivers in Thailand that isn't brown! It was such a smooth, quiet, and serene ride. We were surrounded by nothing but trees, which was a pleasant interruption after the bustle of Bangkok. We had the afternoon off to spend in the hotel's enormous pool, which is good, because there was 91 of us. I couldn't even begin to count how many Changs, Singhas, and Leos were ...

I went on a 2-day safari tour in Kanchanaburi! Of pure coincidence I booked the tour in an Israelian travel agency so it was me and 17 jews! Nice people though, we had a good time.

The tour:
Trip to and from Kanchanaburi in minivan.
Accomodation in Camelia resort with food and beverage.
All the entrance fees and transport paid and so forth.

In other words; everything ...

... reached Kanchanabuir about 2 hours later and went to the JEATH Museum ( Japan, England Australia NZ and Neatherlands and Holland) by the River and got my first glimpse of the Kwai Bridge Where were the ones from the Indian sub continent?.

Then it was onto the one of the war cemateries ( there are a few here). A peacefu place with well tended lawns. Many of the graves were of men in their ...

... our time walking back down and got some great photos while visiting the other six.

Then it was back to Bk for a couple of days, and today i got the Train outa their.

So today I'm in Ayutthaya and tomorrow I’m going to hire a bike a visit the ruins and then a 9pm I’m getting the night sleeper to Chiang Mai.

... classes from the last bus but it had seats and a fan (and a very pretty young lady selling the tickets but don't tell laura I said that). We got to our destination in quicker time than if we had been on the train and so by the time we had checked in to our room, we had most of the day to go exploring.
First stop was the cafe at the Death Railway Museum for a late breakfast. Fully recharged we spent a couple of hours reading the great exhibits at the museum and I'll admit I had a lump ...

... of the kids got off and I got to sit on the carriage steps, where you climb aboard the train, for a literally hair-raising and thrilling ride with fields of ruderalis flashing before my eyes just inches away, with a backdrop of sun-scorched yellow Thai mountains. Occasionally we passed places I had read about where large numbers of people had died in the construction, and also the P.O.W camp kept today as it was then in the war, all ...

... photos, run by a Western guy called Jim. There are 8 children living there at the moment and Jim is trying to adopt all of them, a seemingly impossible task that has been going on for years. The kids guided us down this tiny leafy track and when the path was too narrow to drive down we jumped out and walked the rest of the way. We crossed a river to get there, which gets so flooded in the wet season that it makes it impossible to cross so they have to ...

... amazing!!! We sit down to dinner at a restaurant that, like all the others in this country, just set up shop on the side of the street and are purely outdoor affairs. I order a coconut milk soup at the recommendation of a friend... thanks Jen... needless to say, I was full-blown crying in a matter of just a few seconds. I honestly have never had anything that spicy in my life and it took me another 10 minutes before I could even ...

... rather than the big tourist ones so we found ourselves alone a lot with not many other tourists around! Afterwards, she brought us to a handpainting china 'factory' but it really wasn't, it was more like a house with a lot of women sitting around a room painting. I couldn't believe that these products were handpainted, they were so beautiful and detailed it was amazing to see. Then, we headed to the Floating Markets, which are pretty famous as they were ...

... on one side of the bank. Also included is a train ride along the current rail line beside the Kwai river and later I plant my backside uncomfortably on the head of an elephant and drive it around a field for about an hour, which was a lot of fun - particularly as it seemed significantly better treated than the ones I saw on Ko Phangan a week ago. The day ends with a river raft and a dip in some ...